NFL Draft
11/24/24
1 min read
Shedeur Sanders 2025 NFL Draft: Scouting Report For Colorado QB
Height: 6020 (unofficial)
Weight: 215 (unofficial)
Year: Senior
Pro Comparison: Andy Dalton
Scouting Overview
Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders is a smooth operator at the quarterback position. He pairs a sharp mind for the game with baseline starter physical traits and plus accuracy as a passer. He won't win the beauty pageant among quarterbacks for most enticing tools, but his family background in the game is obvious when observing how he instinctively processes the field of play.
He’s a capable progression passer with natural second-reaction instincts, plus ball-handling skills, and the needed toughness to win from the pocket in the NFL. Sanders’ toughness might be his most impressive quality — he will take massive hits while allowing plays to develop behind some porous offensive line play.
It all adds up to the final product of a player who appears capable of winning as a traditional passer at the NFL level, although his ceiling may be somewhat dependent on the quality of the cast around him.
2025 NFL Combine Results
TBD
Positives
- Smooth, concise delivery to quickly snap throws after making a decision on where to deliver the football
- Big-play minded passer who illustrates supreme trust in his targets to make plays when isolating 1-on-1 opportunities downfield
- Tough as nails — will stand in against pressure and deliver in dirty pockets to allow routes to develop
Negatives
- Does not have the athletic profile of an impactful scrambler — although he does meet baseline mobility needs
- Has a sufficient arm on drive-throw opportunities but lacks the arm strength to access all areas of the field late in progressions or off-script
- Will take too many avoidable sacks when looking to extend plays and get outside of play structure
Background
Shedeur Sanders is the son of NFL legend and Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders. He was born in Tyler, TX, and played his high school football for Trinity Christian HS in Cedar Hill. As the quarterback at Trinity, Sanders starred as a 4-year starter for the program, posting monster numbers of an excess of 12,600 career passing yards and 166 touchdowns. Shedeur was rated as a 3-star recruit leaving Trinity Christian and committed originally to FAU before flipping to Jackson State to play for his father.
Sanders made his debut during the 2021 college season as the starting quarterback for Jackson State and won the Jerry Rice Award for the best freshman player in FCS. He is the first player from an HBCU program to win the award. Sanders’ encore in 2022 saw him win the SWAC Offensive Player of the Year award and the Deacon Jones Trophy for the best HBCU talent in the country.
After the 2022 season, Deion was hired as the head coach at Colorado, and Shedeur quickly followed. Upon his arrival, he was named the team’s starting quarterback and has been a central figure in Colorado’s revival as a program. Sanders faded down the stretch during his junior season after a hot start but returned for a final season of eligibility in 2024 and put together his best season to date.
Tale Of The Tape
Shedeur Sanders projects as a traditional pocket passer for the NFL level. He’s a rhythm passer with good touch, baseline mobility, and excellent field vision as a player. The Colorado offensive system has exposed him to a myriad of throws at all three levels of the field, and he appears to have the necessary arm strength to hit them all in structure. Sanders has good anticipation, accuracy, and a knack for coming up big in big moments.
The family pedigree assures that the moment and stage that comes with being a starting quarterback in the NFL won’t be too much for Sanders, who has become one of the faces of the NIL era of college football. The stresses and rigors of a leadership position are immense. Sanders’ growth in this capacity from Year 1 to Year 2 at Colorado should offer plenty of encouragement that he will energize his teammates with his confidence at the next level, too.
Sanders has a wide field of vision and processes defensive leverage effectively, allowing him to find space and anticipation completions on time to set up his receivers after the catch. He has illustrated the ability to layer the football over the middle of the field and throw to spots where his receivers can run through the catch point.
These reps are most impactful in muddy pockets and under duress — Sanders shows a great sense of how much time his passing clock has before expiration and will allow his receivers to work to open space down the field when extra pressure is brought to compromise numbers on the back end.
This isn’t to say that Sanders is without flaws, particularly when negotiating pressure. It is easy to like and appreciate the sense of the pocket he possesses; Sanders showcases a good natural feel for peripheral pressure and does have some slipperiness to him to find escape hatches and force a broken angle when he gets off his spot.
However, from this point, some added discipline and jurisdiction would go a long way. Many of his turnover-worthy plays and interceptions have come from off-platform or adjusted arm slot throws, where his lack of ability to drive the ball naturally without his full release can allow late passes to be undercut or cause him to float and overshoot passes he would otherwise drive into windows.
Furthermore, he takes sacks at a higher rate than you would like when pressured. Sanders has checked in over 20 percent pressure-to-sack ratio in each of his two seasons at Colorado, an indication that his ability to find escape hatches isn’t being followed through with avoiding minus plays.
This is a trait of many big-play passers, but Sanders is at his best when he identifies blitzes and gets the ball out to replace them or throws in rhythm, as opposed to working outside of structure.
Sanders should be considered a “what you see is what you get” player with pressure. He’s been exposed to about as much of it as any college quarterback during the last two seasons. He’s seen triple-digit third downs under pressure since his arrival at Colorado, and his figures are fairly modest.
Putting him into an environment that encourages quick release time and decisive decision-making is the ticket to limiting the arm talent restrictions that can pop up in his game when forced to drive tight window throws without getting his whole body into the throw.
Sanders shines in one of the great areas of the field to measure these qualities: the red zone. Among college passers with at least 500 total pass attempts since the start of the 2023 season, Sanders ranks in the top three in all FBS passers in passer efficiency and completion percentage in the red area, where spacing is more restrictive and creates more urgency to quickly process the field.
Sanders illustrates some nifty ball handling skills, showcasing the ability to sell jet touch passes or, alternatively, shovel the ball out to a slide across the formation if under duress and looking to quickly get an eligible the ball without an orthodox throw.
With that said, he’s generally more effective without play-action passing. Some of this is compounded by the Colorado running game and a lack of consistency in this phase of the program’s offense. But Sanders has been a more consistent and impactful passer when afforded the opportunity to keep his eyes on the defense post-snap as compared to having to diagnose a changing picture post-snap by turning his back to the defense and then needing to re-acclimate his landmarks.
Teams that are less reliant on play-action and allow the quarterback to process are a better immediate fit — although there’s reason to believe Sanders could thrive with a heavier focus on play-action in time.
Ideal Scheme Fit, Role
Shedeur Sanders projects best into a timing-based offense that optimizes his field vision as a passer and his ability to deliver accurate passes on time. When in rhythm, Sanders makes it look easy on the gridiron and can pick apart defenses methodically.
An offensive system that leans into that ability while encouraging him to mitigate some of his outside-of-structure moments stands the best chance to produce a quality starting quarterback. This is an NFL starter, likely on Day 1.
Grade: 82.00/100.00, Late First/Early Second Round Value
Big Board Rank: TBD
Position Rank: TBD
Make sure to check out our new home for all of our NFL Draft content.
